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To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Though 18 other Missouri inmates have been executed over the past 24 months, Bucklew and Johnson have been spared a 1-way trip to the state's death chamber, at least temporarily, while they pursue a unique appeal argument.

They say they are too ill to be killed.

Both suffer from medical conditions that their attorneys argue could create painful reactions if authorities attempt to execute them with lethal injection chemicals.

But to prevail on the argument that the inmates face an unconstitutional risk of cruel and unusual pain, attorneys for the convicted killers are required by previous court rulings to offer an alternative method for their clients' demise.

For Johnson, whose execution was stayed last month by the U.S. Supreme Court, and Bucklew, who won a stay from the Supreme Court in May 2014, the alternative proposed by their lawyers is the gas chamber.

A relic of Missouri's capital punishment past, it still is an authorized form of execution under Missouri law, although the state no longer has a working gas chamber.

Bucklew's attorneys also have raised a possible second alternative of death by firing squad.

Although a firing squad is not authorized currently by Missouri law, Bucklew's lawyers said that they didn't foresee "much trouble" for lawmakers to pass firing squad legislation "considering the political landscape" in the state.

Bucklew, now 47, was sentenced to death for the 1996 killing of a man in southeast Missouri.

According to court documents, Bucklew suffers from cavernous hemangioma, described as "a rare, dangerous and sometimes debilitating congenital condition that causes clumps of malformed blood vessels to grow in his head, neck and face."

His attorneys say the condition creates a "significant risk" that lethal drugs injected into his body would not circulate properly.

"This will likely prolong the execution and cause Mr. Bucklew to suffer excruciating pain," according to the documents filed on his behalf. "Additionally, the weak, malformed veins in Mr. Bucklew's head could rupture, leading to bleeding, choking or severely compromising his airway."

Johnson, now 55, was sentenced to death for killing 3 people during a 1994 store robbery in Columbia.

He is afflicted with a slow-growing type of brain tumor. Surgeons removed part of the tumor, but a portion remains along with scar tissue, and it has created a defect in his brain, according to court documents filed by his attorneys.

His attorneys also argue that Missouri's current method of execution will cause an adverse reaction.

"There is a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the lethal injection drugs will trigger uncontrollable seizures and convulsions due to Mr. Johnson's unique brain defect and condition," his attorneys wrote. "There is a substantial and unjustifiable risk of a severely painful execution."

Appeals courts have rejected previous legal arguments by other Missouri inmates about the possibility of lethal injection violating their Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

But because of the specific medical conditions of Bucklew and Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted each the chance to raise and argue the issue.

In response to Bucklew's case, attorneys for the state argue that his case be dismissed.

The proposed alternative must be "feasible and readily available." And the inmate must show that it would "significantly reduce" the risk of severe pain, the state's attorneys said.

They argue that because Missouri no longer has a working gas chamber, the method is neither feasible nor readily available. And beyond making a "naked assertion," Bucklew has not provided proof that the method would be any less painful for him.

"The allegation that execution by poison gas would significantly reduce a risk of choking, coughing and gasping for air that allegedly exists in an execution by lethal injection with a fast-acting barbiturate defies common sense," the state argued.

In response, Bucklew's attorneys said in court filings last week that the use of gas is indeed known, feasible and available.

They even suggested a form of gas execution that would employ a physiologically inert gas - such as argon, helium, nitrogen or methane - to induce hypoxia. A sealed gas chamber would not be needed for such an execution because the gas would not be toxic.

"Death by hypoxia is not caused by any lethal chemical entering into the bloodstream, rather death results from depriving the brain of oxygen," Bucklew's lawyers said in their filing.

They noted that officials in Oklahoma and Louisiana recently have raised the possibility of using nitrogen asphyxiation as a form of execution.

Advocates of euthanasia also have proposed the use of inert gases by employing a plastic hood device known as a "suicide bag," they pointed out.

Missouri used the gas chamber from 1938 to 1965. The last man to die by lethal gas was Lloyd Leo Anderson, who was convicted of killing a 15-year-old St. Louis boy during a drug store robbery.

After a hiatus of about 5 years, Missouri reinstated the death penalty in 1977, adopting the method of lethal injection, but keeping lethal gas as an alternative method.

Since the 1st execution in 1989 under the revised law, all of the state's death sentences have been carried out by lethal injection.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., the traditional means of lethal gas execution involved strapping an inmate to a chair in a sealed room.

Crystals of sodium cyanide were then added to a pail of sulfuric acid to create a cloud of hydrogen cyanide gas.

Witnesses described evidence of "extreme horror, pain and strangling."

"The eyes pop. The skin turns purple and the victim begins to drool," one former California prison official reported.

Though Missouri's gas chamber has not been used for 50 years, it still is housed inside a small building at the now-closed prison in Jefferson City and is part of tours conducted by the Jefferson City Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Bucklew's attorneys said that because his execution is not imminent, Missouri officials would have "plenty of time" to repair the existing gas chamber if they chose to do so.

Because Johnson was only recently granted a stay of execution, his attorneys and attorneys for the state are in the process of filing motions and responses. Oral arguments on his case have been scheduled for mid-January.

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Organizers of an anti-death penalty coalition say they have delivered over 56,000 petition signatures to New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, urging him to sign a bill to repeal the state’s capital punishment law.
Sununu has vowed to veto the bill, saying he stands with crime victims and members of the law enforcement community.
Before presenting the signatures, the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty held a news conference Thursday where family members of murder victims spoke in favor of repealing the death penalty.
The bill was passed by the House and Senate.
It is unclear whether they have a two-thirds majority of votes in both chambers, which is needed to override vetoes. Source: The Associated Press, May 17, 2018

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The high school junior accused of gunning down 10 students and teachers at a Santa Fe school is facing a capital murder charge - but he’ll never face the death penalty, even in Texas.
Though Dimitrios Pagourtzis was charged as an adult and jailed without bond, even if he’s found guilty he can’t be sentenced to death because of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And in the Lone Star State, he can’t be sentenced to life without parole as the result of a 2013 law that banned the practice for minors.
“In Texas, after the Supreme Court’s decision, they passed a law that basically says that it’s a life sentence if you’re under 18 at the time of the crime,” said attorney Amanda Marzullo, executive director of Texas Defender Services. “The Court has said that it is cruel and unusual to execute an individual who is under 18 at the time of the offense.”
The Santa Fe High School student admitted to the mass shooting that killed 10 and wounded 10 others early Friday, according to court documents.…

31 years ago, on May 20, 1987, just before midnight, I was sitting in the witness area of the Mississippi Gas Chamber watching someone die in front of me. His name was Edward Earl Johnson.
I am both sad and glad that Edward’s final two weeks, right up to his agonising death, were recorded in Paul Hamann’s extraordinary BBC documentary Fourteen Days in May. Sad, because from time to time I find myself forced to relive that horror, when I watch the film at some public event; glad, because at least Edward’s senseless death has had positive repercussions – the film inspiring many to take up the battle for people in his precarious predicament.
Yet it irks me beyond measure that people who should know better use their position of power to prognosticate that the justice system never executes the innocent. For example, in a case called Kansas v. March, in 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia loudly proclaimed that there is not “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a…

How much does the public have a right to know about how the state of Indiana executes people?
It is a question that, effectively, strikes at the heart of capital punishment. And it's the issue in a 4-year-old case in Marion Circuit Court that started with a public records request by Washington attorney A. Katherine Toomey to the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC).
"If we win ... the Indiana public will know more about one of the most consequential areas of decision making that the state of Indiana engages in," attorney Peter Racher said in an interview.
The state, however, sees it as contrary to a state law limiting what the public can see pertaining to executions. The law was controversial because of how it passed. After midnight on the final day of the 2017 legislative session, it was added to a budget bill, two pages out of 175.
"The budget is now a death penalty bill," Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said at the time. "There's been no public…

(CNN) - An Australian woman has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Malaysian court overturned an earlier acquittal of drug smuggling charges.
According to CNN affiliate Sky News, a three-judge panel unanimously threw out the previous ruling in 54-year-old Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto's case.
The grandmother and mother of four was arrested in December 2014 while transiting through the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Shanghai to Melbourne, according to another CNN affiliate, SBS News.
She was found in possession of 1.1 kilos (2.4 lb) of crystal methamphetamine and faced a mandatory death penalty under Malaysia's draconian drugs laws.
Exposto claimed she had no knowledge of the drugs in her bag and had been scammed by a boyfriend she met online.
According to SBS, Exposto's lawyers said she had gone to Shanghai to file documents in relation to her boyfriend's retirement from service in the US army. When she left China, Exposto claimed she was handed …

The lawyers fighting the death penalty ordered for a former Northmont High School student want the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its affirmation of the sentence and scheduling of the execution.
Austin Myers' lawyers said in a motion filed this morning that they want the state's highest court to overturn the conviction and call a new trial "or in the alternative that his sentence be modified to life without parole."
Myers, 23, is still apparently the 2nd youngest on Ohio's death row 3 1/2 years after being sentenced for the murder of childhood friend Justin Back, 18, of Wayne Twp., Warren County.
Last Thursday, the court affirmed the death penalty for Myers, for the stabbing death of Back at his home outside Waynesville in January 2014.
The execution was scheduled for July 20, 2022 in the decision.
Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell was pleased with the 7-0 ruling by the state's highest court.
"The 7-0 decision is always something you like to se…

Defendant claims firefighters didn't try hard enough to extinguish blaze
The nanny responsible for killing 4 members of a family in an arson appeared in court in eastern China on Thursday to appeal her death sentence.
Mo Huanjing, nanny of the family of Lin Shengbin, pleaded guilty to starting the fire. But she said during the appeal at Zhejiang High People's Court that "the penalty in the original ruling was extremely heavy".
"The tragedy wasn't the result I wanted to see," she added. She said the efforts of firefighters were flawed. And she confessed to her offense during the initial interrogation, which could be regarded as a reason to earn a more lenient sentence.
Wu Pengbin, her lawyer, told China Daily that some firefighters and employees of the property management department of Lin's apartment attended the hearing as witnesses at his urging.
"I wanted them to show what they were doing at the time to the court, as I, with my client, thoug…

To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Concerns about Texas' dwindling lethal injection supplies coupled with questions about the age of the drugs have some advocates wondering whether the state is prepared to humanely carry out its recent uptick in scheduled executions.
Texas currently has 8 death dates and 9 doses of its execution drug - compounded sodium pentobarbital - for use in the Huntsville death chamber. What's more, a string of contradictory records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice raises questions about whether some of those doses could be 3 years old, far older than previously reported and old enough that experts worry it could increase the chances of a "torturous" execution.
"The older the drug the greater the likelihood of a botched execution. Period," said Maurie Levin, a death penalty lawyer with experience in lethal injection litigation. "It becomes contaminated, corrupted, impotent, and all of those things can lead to a torturous execution."
In response …

Texas executed Juan Castillo, who said he was innocent, for 2003 San Antonio murder
A Texas death row inmate was executed Wednesday — his 4th execution date in a year. Though advocates and his attorneys insisted on Juan Castillo's innocence, he lost all his fights in court and was put to death for a 2003 San Antonio murder.
Juan Castillo was put to death Wednesday evening, ending his death sentence on his 4th execution date within the year.
The 37-year-old was executed for the 2003 robbery and murder of Tommy Garcia Jr. in San Antonio.
The execution had been postponed three times since last May, including a rescheduling because of Hurricane Harvey.
Castillo's advocates and attorneys had insisted on his innocence in Garcia’s murder, pleading unsuccessfully for a last-minute 30-day stay of execution from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott after all of his appeals were rejected in the courts.
The Texas Defender Service, a capital defense group who had recently picked up Castillo’s cas…

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.